What’s this? Why is it all going over me? Could it be that I am in over my head?

95.  My favorite books of all time:  Ender’s Game, The Count of Monte Cristo, the Little Prince.  I like them for different reasons: I can identify with a 12-year-old that was manipulated into xenocide (Ender’s Game), I really admire people that can get things done and who do what they say they’ll do (The Count of Monte Cristo), and I like lilliputian monarchs (Prince Charles).

Dear World,

Today was the Duke graduate student orientation, which, as Ashley commented,

It was weird. I felt very smart and very stupid all at the same time.

So, I survived the trip to North Carolina and made it out of my first day at Duke alive.  Which is good.  As my Tweet said earlier, that was definitely among my top two preferred outcomes.

I’m going back to set up my Internet now, so maybe I’ll be able to update more frequently.  I’ll keep you updated.

p.s.  I’m thinking I’ll change the layout of my site in the next few months.  You can cast your votes for colors/styles now.

Last Year: "En la vida todo te regresa", "In life, everything comes back to you"
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Sometimes I feel my life is a Dinosaur Comic

76.  I’ve kept a digital diary since Sunday, November 19, 2000.  Nobody will ever read it, but it’s really whiny and tells a lot of secrets that I’ll take to my grave.  I’d delete it, but it sort of reminds me of how far I’ve come: now I whine to the world.

Dear World,

I was going to print a comic today.  Then Photoshop stopped working.  I fear that the people that sold me this machine were only letting me use the program for a few months before they reclaimed it.  I e-mailed them as soon as Photoshop announced it was shutting me out and they seemed genuinely concerned for a few steps, advising me to do things no non-hacker would know how to do.  I only grew suspicious when they offered to help pay for me to ship my laptop to them to ‘fix,’ but were unwilling to do the same for the far cheaper installation CDs.

Then I was going to put up one of those newfangled ‘podcasts,’ until I realized that my friend and I have no idea what we’re doing and what we produce looks like poo.

So instead, I’m going to tell you all that I’m going to quit blogging.  At least for the foreseeable future.

I mentioned two weeks ago that I was going to be traveling the world for the next few months (but not to any new places.  New places scare me).  I tried to write triple the blog posts over these past few weeks (in order to build up a backlog), but then I realized I wasn’t Stephen King and that I only really ever had one talking point for any given day.

Since I wasn’t very good at updating when I traveled last year, I won’t even try this year. This means that after May 20th (when I leave), May 29th (my birthday), or June 4th (when I finally reach 100 facts about me), I won’t be updating until mid-August.

Please subscribe to my feed or contact me if you wish to be updated when I come back.  I’ll remind you about this on whichever day I decide will be my last.

p.s.  I just donated $65 to the World Food Programme (because they’ve already gotten a few tonnes of food and medicine into Myanmar).  I’ve made it a recurring donation, because I’ve decided to donate at least 1 percent (and possibly 2 percent) of my yearly income to charity.  This means that I’mna donate some $250-500 per year for the next few years, possibly to other charities as well.

p.p.s.  I keep meaning to update my blogroll.  Apologies to those not currently on it.

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Wow, that took a dark turn at the end…

63. For years my favorite number was 35. That just seems silly to me now, because it’s 100011 in binary.

Dear World,

I’ve decided to start treating you all as a single person, much like Anne Frank did to “Kitty.” (Her dog.) Presumably this will make it easier to dump you later on in the year when I stop blogging. Or maybe it’ll make it harder.

Actually, I’m seriously beginning to fear the summer. I’ve sort of mentioned my plans on leaving the country and touring the world (here), but I haven’t updated you in almost four weeks, so here goes.

Originally, I was going to go see my little cousin graduate in July.  After that, I wanted to take advantage of the trip to see the home country. Then I decided I should, while I’m in the area, go around the planet and visit my friends in Australia. A quick e-mail survey suggested that I should arrive in Australia (pronounced “Oz”) right after my cousin’s graduation July 11.

… THEN I called another cousin for her birthday and found out that she graduates May 30. This put me in an odd bind, because I was born May 29, and I didn’t know if I wanted to be gone for my birthday. But, after a protracted internal monologue, I realized I wasn’t planning on having a birthday this year anyway. In case you missed my tweet: I’ll be 25 until further notice. This means that I was now born in 1982 until May 29, after which I will have been born in 1983. Besides: my birthdays have been lame for a while now. I think a grand total of three people remembered me when I turned 22 (and one of them was me).

SO, the final plan is thus: Leave May 20 for Mexico, see a graduation, tour three or four states and visit family, see another graduation, return to New Mexico July 14. Then, July 15, I leave for Australia and spend time with friends over there and return August 7 in time for my friend Jcak’s wedding. I’ll have a week’s vacation then to pack up all my stuff, move across the country to North Carolina, and find an apartment in time for the August 19 orientation.

*PHEW!* I’m not sure where I’ll fit blogging in that schedule, but I’m sure I’ll have a few minutes to spare between exhaustion and unconsciousness. Some people think I cut it too close: I say they’re lucky I give them air holes at all.

How do I get the money, you ask?

Simple: I sell drugs to children.

(My streams of consciousness are like white-water rapids, but this is what happens when the Internet goes down and I lose valuable hours of browsing and blogging.)

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I miss irony… do you ever think she’s coming back?

39. I learned to read when I was four because my mom was teaching my brother how to read and I wanted her to pay attention to me. Every time I hear that story, I’m astounded at how little has changed.

Since I started posting a fact about myself every day, I’ve stopped posting multiple times a day. Now I just post the once and, if any silly thoughts ever happen upon my head, I’m S.O.L.

Yesterday, I had a missed call from ‘Unknown’ and felt bad for hours because I started pretending Unknown was a real person and actually convinced myself of it. I was like “I don’t have unknown’s number and what if this was the only time she could call??” But… I couldn’t blog about it. Instead, god forgive me, I TWITTERED about it. I turned a whimsical aside into a 160 word status update! Have I no shame??

These things have occurred more and more often since that fateful day I needed a post to write and thought this would be a fun project.

I’ve also gotten in trouble or made fun of because of my ‘facts.’ Who doesn’t remember how awkward this one was? (You should see my friends when we go swimming!)

Also, since No. 19, I haven’t made jokes out of any of my facts. Apparently, people thought I was serious on that one when I was really just setting up a joke:

I have superior powers of reasoning, oratory, mathematics, and most everything else. But don’t worry: I only use my powers for good, evil, and to show off.

The last part was the joke. Get it?

Anyway, I’m not sure if I’ll try to change this up or just keep it going for the next 61 days or two months… (TWO MONTHS???) Two months..   So if there are any particular factoids about myself you’d like to know, just leave a comment of some sort.  I’ll eventually address it.

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F’ing with SEO

18. I once memorized pi to 1000 places. Actually, that’s not true, I memorized 20 places, then started making up numbers. Surprisingly, nobody called me on it.

In the hopes of writing a slightly different post that the last one like this, I’ve decided to screw with anybody who might find a portion of this post on a search engine. Basically, I want to viciously misrepresent my site so that they think they’re going to read an article that’s way different than this. Just go with it, you’ll get it eventually.

Top terms visitors used to find your page in a search

• pixelated/pixelation In computer graphics, pixelation is an effect caused by displaying a bitmap or a section of a bitmap at such a large size that individual pixels, small single-colored square display elements that comprise the bitmap, are visible to the eye. When an image suffers from Pixelation, it means that the author of this blog has blown it up so much that even individual pixels are running for attention.
• things to do before you turn 30 Ride an ocelot, win some of Nobel’s blood money, see all seven wonders of the world, not to mention the list of 100 awesome things that Google doesn’t capture.
• goals before age 25 Eat an endangered species, gravitate toward a black hole, become engaged to a person with a prior commitment, plus 97 way more cool things that are below the fold.
• draco rapes hermione This slash fiction has been rated as the best sequel to the seventh book. J.K. herself said that this was “awesome shit” and that she wished she’d thought of it.
• when the jazzman testifies Samuel “Bleeding Gums” Murphy testified today in the Greater Springfield Court that his relationship with one Lisa “Loves Older Men” Simpson was purely platonic.
• zzzzap The aliens’ space blasters shot Eli straight in the butt. “OUCH!” Eli shouted. “You shot me straight in the butt!” And the aliens apologized and forfeited the match. That night, though Eli had the trophy he had so longed for, his accomplishment was bittersweet because he was dead.
• “flashed at some” boobs Whenever I’ve been flashed at some boobs, I’m always happier than when I’m not being flashed at some boobs, and you KNOW it.
• aggies xchange books was not only where I got my Chemistry textbook, but where I found my apartment, job, girlfriend, and to a lesser extent: herpetic prostitutes.
• alethea pronounced Al-SCHMEE-thee-ah, is actually a fairly common name in many parts of the world. The non-silent SCHM sound is confusing to many ignorant people, but is actually the proper pronunciation.
• ayshea quintana Ayshea Quintana should get whatever job she’s applying for. She probably deserves it, although I’ve never really met her. Still: good first name.
• “tooth fairy” wisdom tooth | teeth amount | “how much” Scientists say that not giving your child more than $20 per tooth is a sign that you don’t love them. Also, in a Harvard study, linked to below, there was a direct, causal correlation between increased money giving and the child’s IQ.
• how do i autosave in “adobe illustrator”? The autosave feature in illustrator is actually very difficult to find. Under the ‘Window’ menu, go down to the ‘pages’ palette, then click on the ‘take me to the secret illustrator menu’ option that you should have if you bought the deluxe edition. There: you will find autosave.

p.s.  I totally didn’t realize today was pi day.  The fact was unrelated, but eerily appropriate.  Happy pi day!

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